Do not be deceived for I and My Word are not mocked, whatever you sow, you will reap in due season, whether it be good fruit or evil fruit.

Do not wait until harvest time, the choice is made at sowing time. You know the principle well from your own garden, sow what you want to reap. Weeds from this fallen world may grow and try to choke the harvest, be consistent in tending your crop, take care of it, sow only in good soil where I am working. Do not let weeds of discouragement choke and zap the life from the crop. When you see a weed appear, pull it up from the root, don’t just pull the head off, you must get to the root, that the crop will not be hindered but flourish!

Of all the weeds in the garden of your life, discouragement is the most destructive. Pull it up, and sprinkle your garden with a doze of faith. Weeds of discouragement belong to the family of doubt and cannot survive in a garden of faith.

Thank you for refining my life as you faithfully “pour me out” season to season, and love me enough, not to let me rest on my “lees”, but continually “pour me out” to rid my life of bitterness, that you may gain pleasure from my life. Help me be that vessel of honor, and to rely on You, and not on my works and treasures but only on my confidence in My relationship with You. My trust is in Your faithfulness, a rock that cannot be moved. Help me have spiritual insight to know the reason of the “pouring out” that I might know the bitterness you are purging, and even if I don’t see the “whys” may I just trust your workings is for my good.

Dear Child,

Each time I “pour you out” you trust Me more, because your faith grows in that valley! Your faith in My sovereign working is more precious than gold.

Do not kick against My workings, yield, submit and rest in My workings, and you will find rest for your soul.

This is the rest you will enter into, relying on and trusting My workings, as you present yourself a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable in My sight.

Have a humble heart and quiet confidence.

Thus saith Papa

Jeremiah 48:11 Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.

The imagery of this verse needs explaining. In wine that is settling on its lees (that which settles during fermentation), stationary and still, the upper level becomes clear; but beneath is a bitter sediment that will muddy it again if shaken. Before the days of filters, to clear the wine it was emptied carefully from one vessel to another, but however skillfully this was done some of the lees would get across. So the process must be repeated again and again to rid it of its unwelcome taste. Moab, Israel’s natural cousins, had escaped that treatment; had not as Israel had, been sifted and purified through afflictions, with the result, God says, that her bitter taste still clung. There is thus value in God’s discipline of us, a little today and a little more tomorrow. The goal is a savor in us, a character that meets with His approval and delights His heart.

Moab remained in the old state because Moab was not purified through afflictions.

1Peter1:6-7 In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

CHALLENGE: Even through the fiery furnace of trials as we see His hand pouring us out, may we understand that His loving purpose is to refine us rather than letting us rest on our “lees” and remain in our old fallen state

At this time of the year lovers are selecting gifts to please their sweethearts and children are busy cutting out paper hearts to send to their friends.

In the midst of all the activity do not let us neglect to declare our love for the Lord by offering Him a spiritual Valentine. Beyond all our gifts or service there is one Valentine that would please Him more than anything else we might offer and that is our hearts. No, not paper ones but the real thing. For when we offer Him our hearts we give Him our all. Thats what Isaac Watts meant when he wrote this line to his hymn “When I survey the Wondrous Cross”.

“Were the whole realm of nature mine

That were a present far too small

Love so amazing, so divine

Demands my soul, my life, my all.”

1 John 4:10 “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins.”

How could we help but love Him? Yet there are many who do not return His love. This brought anguish to Francis of Assisi, when he thought of Calvary and realized so many refuse the Savior’s love. He was moved to travel the streets exclaiming “Love is not loved ! Love is not loved !” This is also the tragedy of 2013, for Love is still being despised and rejected by many. But millions do love and cherish Him. Our hearts are His. At a time when the world is searching for love in all the wrong places, let us declare His Love to the world by loving one another as He first loved us.

Challenge: 1 John 4:11 “Beloved if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.